Nice upgrade to 2002.

User Rating: 8.4 | The King of Fighters NeoWave XBOX
I am so glad to finally play this. This is the some of the best fighting you can get with a friend. It features 43 great characters, 3 different gauges, and a lot of fun. With each gauge, is a different strategy. One gives you up to 3 special combo stores, one gives you 2 with a special guard breaker power move, and the last one gives you a max 2 move which you can use when your almost out of energy and your at red and it's powerful enough to quickly turn the tide of the match. But you can't do a roll in this gauge. But all of them feature pressing a button to activate a sort of mode (Heat Mode) where your moves are more powerful but as it is activated your energy goes down until you deactivate or get hit.

As for the graphics, with the new atomiswave software get a good deal better overall, including the character sprites. The sound stays the same as 2002 except with new music. K9999 and Angel are missing but Jhun Hoon and Saisyu are added to this all-star roster. Mei Lee is also missing which brings the character count to 43. The boss in arcade mode is now young Geese Howard. There is no text in the cutscenes, so not story. The other modes include endless, training, versus, etc. Same modes as in 2002, and gallery of course. Also, online mode returns, but it is much clearer and faster this time, this brings the games value up a great deal.

Any fan of King of Fighters like me will certainly buy it. If your not already a fan of King of Fighters and have played 2002, then there is nothing to make you get into this one. Finding a way to play it is a must. It should be at least rented because it is old-school fun.